basketball

Review #1: (Written in the same format as most 10-12 year olds)

OMG this game is awsome! You can hit the bal far and creat players that are really strong and good! I mad a player who hit 142 homeruns! This is the bst baseball game ever! Buy itnow! My Mom did!

Review #2: (For people who actually want to know whether this is a good game or not)

The MLB series used to suck. Bad. Big time. But apparently, the folks at 989 sports threw their old game design kits out of a 12 story window and started fresh, because MLB 2005 is back and almost at the top of the leaderboard. It has the best franchise mode of any game this side of Madden '04. The graphics get the job done and the controls--sorry, "Total Control"s--are spot on.

My favorite part of the game, however, is uploading my face onto a created rookie via the EyeToy. It's pretty cool making a funny face (like Bonds hearing he had to visit the pee doctor) and then mapping it out onto the next big thing.

Another thing MLB has going for it is "Career Mode" where you must fight to make it onto a big league club and earn bigger and better contracts and more playing time. There's a handful of retro jerseys and upwards of 50 retro players and a few old time parks to take some swings in.

As far as gameplay goes, pitching is fairly simple, batting (at least on rookie difficulty) is as simple as see it--hit it. There's even interactive Hot/Cold zones, so if you keep hitting the down and aways, your guy will get better at it, thereby affecting his attributes. Fielding isn't too bad and it's nice having separate buttons for jump(R1) and dive(R2). Baserunning takes some getting used to, but stealing is fairly easy as long as you don't use a catcher or pitcher. Or John Olerud. The announce team is spot on, but Matt Vasgersian gets a little annoying ("Guys, the third baseman, is hitting under .200 so far in the early stages of the season")

As for the negatives, there is no create-a-team, franchise seasons MUST be 162 games long, and the stadium crowds are paper thin.

Now, as far as online goes, I haven't had a chance to test that out yet, but here's what 989 says they can do: Voice chat, online leaderboards, official or user tournaments, real life sports tickers, messaging and user-mail (not e-mail), and weekly roster updates. Sounds tasty.

I'm very satisfied with this game, and the $... price point is an added delicacy. Having played All Star Baseball 2 seasons ago and World Series Baseball last year, I can safely say that this game is the best of the three. Definitely a solid purchase for any PS2-owning baseball fan.

This game has great graphics to me the faces look very real so if you are looking for a sport game to buy you should by MLB 2005 as your next game as well as Need For Speed Underground

This game was horrible. The MLB series just suck so amazingly its not even funny. This game was soooo stupid. The batting was horrible. It didn't have the pure swing system. The pitching was even worse, I put the cursor in one place it ends up not even close to where I put it. The fielding is unrealistic. Half the plays I didn't make in MLB '05, I could've made in MVP '04. The commentators bore the crap out of me espcially that Scully dude. If you quit a game in the middle, you can't simulate the rest of it. Barry Bonds isn't in the game. The graphics suck, as in the player faces suck. I'd say the best lookin' thing in the game is the uniforms. That's it. Overall, this game sux. I truly reccomend MVP Baseball 2004 over this.